Responding to a GAO report issued in January, Interior agreed to explore its oil and gas management bureaus’ expanded use of recruitment, relocation, retention, and other incentives and systematically collect and analyze hiring data.
Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management, Ned Farquhar, told the subcommittee that the bureaus have made progress in workforce planning, hiring, and retention – particular in light of recent budget uncertainty and financial constraints.
For example, Farquhar said the BLM, BOEM, and BSEE have reallocated staff geographically and functionally to cover needs that have appeared suddenly, such as in the new oil fields in North Dakota.
He noted that BSEE in the Gulf of Mexico, has been hiring and using various pay flexibilities to reflect demands identified in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BLM has moved petroleum technicians top pay grade up to GS – 11, while offering and requiring cross-training, and that overall the bureaus have also begun a more systematic collection and analysis of hiring data.
As an example of the use of special hiring authority, Farquhar noted that BOEM during fiscal 2012 and 2013 offered a special salary rate to geologists, geophysicists, and petroleum engineers of 25 percent in addition to the current GS base rate (authority to use that rate has been extended through 2015) helping to retain current staff and attract recent college graduates. The authority has been used to hire 14 new employees, he said. However, he added that 15 funded vacancies and 10 unfunded vacancies remain due to sequestration.
